A Dream Deferred
by Ari Moriarty
Summary: Fifth in the "Dreamgirl" series. In the end, they'd all agreed to help Minako Arisato bear the burden of the seal by living their lives to the fullest. That proved easier said that done. As the years went by, it got harder and harder to remember what they'd been fighting so hard to protect, and time, it seems, doesn't heal all wounds.
1. One: The Reverse Magician

**Author's Note: **This is, again, a companion piece to the **Dreamgirl **series, but this one is a little different. For one thing, it will focus around the lives of the SEES team, thirteen years after the defeat of Nyx. Also, I won't be writing this story all at once.

Every time a new member of SEES appears in **The Wildest Dreams**, I'll add a drabble to this story. I'm in the process of playing through P3P again right now, so hopefully that will help me get this right.

WARNING: This will NOT be a happy story. It is depressing and dark for reasons that will become obvious as you read through both this and **The Wildest Dreams**.

Please keep in mind as you read that one of two things has happened, here.

EITHER Suzume Moto erased everyone's memories of the events of the Arena games, or Arena only occurred in Minato's universe, and did not occur in Minako's universe.

It's up to you as to which interpretation you prefer, but the events of Arena will not factor into this series.

**One: The Reverse Magician**

For once, on that night in late February, Junpei Iori got off of work early. By the time he'd left the school, had changed his clothes and had washed his face in the men's bathroom sink, it wasn't even ten o'clock yet.

_Bam, _he thought. _Junpei Iori, master of efficiency. Looks like I've got the whole night to myself, now. Not like there's much for even a free, fun-loving guy like me to do in this town. Sheesh. _

There were two hours left before midnight, and he knew from plenty of observation over the last few months that he didn't have a chance of seeing that girl's face in the TV any time before midnight. With not much else to do, he got into his car and drove all the way to Okina City, with his favorite tunes blasting at top volume through the open windows and out on to the basically deserted night time streets.

That, at least, felt good. _You know, _he decided, _actually, I kinda like it here. Nobody around at this time of night. Nobody hassling me, asking me to do stuff for them or with them. The world is my oyster…just little old me. Aren't even any cops around the place to shout at me for playing my music too loud…_

He grinned at the thought, and cranked the radio up even louder.

All the shops and restaurants in Inaba shut down around ten o'clock, Junpei knew, but in Okina people partied all night long…or at least, until midnight. There were plenty of lights still flashing on signs posted above bars and shops in Okina City. It was a weeknight, so there weren't exactly tons of people around, but there were enough to make the place look a lot livelier than Inaba, at least.

Junpei bypassed the bars, and decided he didn't feel much like going to a movie. Instead, he headed straight for the new coffee shop on the corner, where he could get his coffee black and bitter without getting dirty or affronted looks from the baristas. He sat down in a corner by himself, sipping at his coffee and staring at the wall, trying to soothe his restless jitters away with his favorite drink.

_Plus, _he thought, _coffee gives you that extra boost. Helps you stay up later at night. _He rubbed at the dark circles under his eyes and wondered how late he could get away with sleeping in the next morning.

"Oh," murmured someone from a few tables over. "It's you…"

Junpei looked up into the eyes of a drop-dead gorgeous curly-headed blond, with perfectly manicured fingers, lusciously glossed lips and one of the best figures any guy in Japan had ever seen. She was gazing at him with a disappointed, disdainful expression in her pretty golden eyes, as though he was the bottom of a used-up container of nail polish, or an unappealing insect on the top of her favorite compact.

_Aw jeez, _he thought, wincing.

"Uh…h-hey!" He tried to grin at her, and knew that he looked as stupid as he felt. "Check it out, it's Ai-chan! You come here too, huh? Uh, I didn't know."

Ai continued to stare at him, and Junpei felt the smile falling off of his face. "Ugh," she muttered. "Don't call me that. Why do you have to be here? I think I'm gonna leave…"

She glanced down at her cup, and Junpei was sure that he saw tears starting to form in her eyes. Frantically, he shook his head. "Nah, you don't gotta do that. Seriously, stick around. I'm not trying to run you out of town, or anything. This is just a weird coincidence. Let's just try to chill. We can get along. I'll keep quiet. Honest."

"You? Keep quiet?" Ai shook her head, laughing a mocking little laugh. "I don't think so. You always talk too much."

For a few long minutes they sat in silence, while Junpei attempted to prove that he did not, in fact, talk too much. He tried to focus on drinking his coffee, and Ai was clearly doing her best to do the same, but they both kept shooting glances at each other out of the corners of their eyes, and eventually Ai sighed and bit down hard on her lip.

"So, uh…whatcha drinking?" asked Junpei, reaching for a non-threatening conversation topic. "Smells good from here." He craned his neck to try and get a better glimpse of Ai's drink, and she peevishly snatched it away from him.

"Get your own," she snapped. "I'm not sharing. Are you too broke to even be able to afford your own coffee, now? Maybe you should think about getting a real job."

It was a cruel thing to say, and normally Junpei would have been able to come up with something biting and caustic enough to parry her thrust, but tonight he didn't bother. He remembered the angry, betrayed look on Ai's face as she'd half-shouted and half-sobbed at him on her way out through his front door months ago.

She'd been dressed up in her best, most body-hugging little black dress, and she'd been wearing a pair of shoes that somehow made her legs look even longer, like they went on forever. Her hair had been done up into perfect little ringlet curls at the back of her head, and she'd stood there at the front door, staring at him wither lips pursed and tears in her eyes while he'd sat on the floor in his undershirt, gazing desperately into the turned-off TV.

"Junpei," she'd said, flashing him a watered-down, brave little version of her most winning smile. "Let's go out. I want you to take me out tonight. It'll be fun! I'll show you a good time!"

Junpei had just shaking his head." Nah," he'd mumbled "I'm busy. Sorry."

"But," Ai had insisted, "we haven't gone out in months! There's this cool new restaurant in Okina that I want to try, and that new movie I've been looking forward to just started playing. Come on, let's go. I'm so bored here. I need to get out."

Junpei hadn't said anything to that. He'd shrugged and grimaced apologetically, and had started wondering whether he'd picked up enough snacks at the store to last him the rest of the night, just in case he had a long time to wait before that girl appeared on the screen.

"Junpei…" When Ai spoke up again, she sounded less angry, and more frightened. "Junpei, don't you like me anymore? What am I to you?"

"Huh?" That really had gotten Junpei's attention. He'd looked up at her and found tears in her eyes, and for a second, he hadn't had a clue what to say.

Apparently, that second was all that Ai had needed. She'd taken a deep breath, drawn herself up to her full height, and had planted both hands on her hips.

"Fine, then," she'd snapped. "I'm leaving. If you don't care, then I don't care. It doesn't matter. You're a lazy waste of time, anyway. You're worthless. You never do anything but sit in front of the TV and eat snacks. You barely have a job, and you don't make money. You're always sitting on your ass, so you're growing a gut. I don't know how I ended up with a guy like you in the first place. This sucks. I'm out of here."

Junpei had gotten to his feet as she'd darted up the stairs and disappeared into their bedroom. "Hey!" he'd shouted. "Hey, come on, Ai…"

When she'd come back down the stairs, though, suitcases in hand, he hadn't known what to say. There hadn't really been be anything left to say.

_Yeah, _he'd thought, as she'd stormed out and slammed the door behind her. _Guess she's got a point, there…_

"Junpei!" Ai was still staring at him across the top of her coffee, now apparently irrationally annoyed that he'd gotten lost in his own thoughts and wasn't paying attention to her. He remembered the miserable, defeated look on her face when she'd asked him if he even liked her, and part of him hated himself for having hurt her, even if he still didn't have a good answer to her question.

"Uh…yeah," he mumbled. "Yeah? What is it?"

She frowned, shaking her head. "No…nothing. Forget it."

They both went back to drinking their coffee.

Staring miserably into his cup, Junpei was sure that heard Ai make a noise that sounded like she was choking. Looking quickly over again, he saw that she was trying to force back the angry tears.

"H-hey," he heard himself say, in a gentle voice that he hadn't used in a long time. "Come on, don't cry. Girls are always a hell of a lot prettier when they smile, right? Uh, you're…well, you're pretty all the time, but you're beautiful when you smile. Come on. Please? For me?"

Ai did not smile. She looked up into Junpei's eyes for a moment, clearly startled. Then she gathered up her coat and bag and stormed out the door without a word, leaving Junpei alone and, as usual, not quite sure exactly what had just happened.

"Sheesh," he muttered, really not that thirsty any more. "Ex-girlfriends…what a drag."

Something in his chest hurt.


	2. Two: A Single Action

**Author's Note: **Oh dear. It's my twenty sixth birthday (dear god, I'm so OLD!), but I have a flu and am sick in bed. I wonder if any of the local restaurants would be willing to deliver me a piece of cake…

I'll get on that right away. Oh, also, I'll start writing the next chapter of **The Wildest Dreams** while I'm stuck here.

In the meantime, here is another vignette about one of our favorite P3P characters. Please note; this story takes place AFTER Chapter Two of **The Wildest Dreams. **

**Two: A Single Action**

That night, Margaret didn't go home with Dojima. She'd gotten used to staying overnight in his home, and she felt safer and more comfortable there than in her own all too quiet and unfamiliar new place. Margaret felt some kind of legitimate connection to Dojima, at least. She enjoyed being close to his nephew as well. However, Margaretfelt almost no connection at all to the rest of this complicated and restless human world.

Tonight, she bid Dojima a hasty if affectionate farewell directly after dinner and strode off through the shopping district in the direction of the metalworks establishment owned by the man called Daidara. It had been several weeks since she'd used the street entrance to the Velvet Room, and even though Margaret had spent most of what she could remember of life within that room she was uncomfortable and uncertain about entering now.

As it happened, she didn't have to. As Margaret turned the corner and approached the Velvet Room door, she found Elizabeth standing just outside the entrance, watching with morbid fascination in her eyes as a pair of housewives across the street engaged in an unintelligible but clearly vicious squabble. Upon hearing the click of Margaret's heels on the pavement, Elizabeth looked up and beamed triumphantly at her elder sister.

"Oh! You came!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "I am so very glad. I was hoping you would come."

"Yes," murmured Margaret. "I…am here. Are you going in?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No. As I told you before, I did not come her e to see that man. I came…for other reasons. I also wished to see you. It has been quite some time."

_Strange, _thought Margaret. _Although it has indeed been a very long while since Elizabeth and I have spoken like this, I feel no great joy at our meeting now. This girl here is a stranger to me in many ways. Already she begins to look and sound different than she did. She has met new people, and seen new things, and it has changed her. Who is she, now, and who am I?_

"Your reasons for coming here…what are they?" Margaret frowned. "You tell me that you have no need to speak with our master, and that you have no business in this room. What, then, do wish to ask me?"

Infuriatingly, Elizabeth pouted. "But I only wished to visit my sister," she insisted "Is that so very wrong? Maggie, are you angry with me?"

Margaret blinked. "Maggie? What is-?"

"It is a special name for 'Margaret,'" Elizabeth explained enthusiastically. "Margaret is a very long name, you see. Many people choose to use short versions of their names to make them easier to say. These short names are called 'nicknames.' The nickname for Margaret is 'Maggie.' Do you like it?"

Elizabeth was gazing eagerly up at Margaret, begging for approval with her eyes. Margaret felt slightly sick to her stomach, and wondered if something she'd eaten at Aiya hadn't agreed with her after all.

"No," she said quietly. "No, I do not like it. It is not my name. My name is Margaret. Our master gave me that name. He gave you yours as well, if you will take the time to recall. 'Elizabeth.' The name means 'Promise of the Gods.'"

Margaret had always liked the name "Elizabeth." She liked the meaning of the name, and she liked the way that her sister's name invoked a belief in higher orders and higher powers. "Promise of the Gods" implied a sort of understanding between the gods, the human world, and everyone in between. Margaret had always found the prospect of that hierarchy to be a comforting one. It helped her to know her place, and knowing her place made her feel safe and secure, even in this changing world.

Elizabeth, however, seemed to have lost track of her place. It had been a very long time since Elizabeth had abandoned her duties in the Velvet Room, and had forsaken their master and the purpose for which she was born.

_And yet, _thought Margaret, _she seems so unmoved by guilt or doubt. She is either reckless, irresponsible, or foolishly naïve. She will lose her way, and then she will have nothing. In the end, she will return o us in shame. _

"Oh…" Elizabeth sighed. "You are angry. I'm so disappointed. I was looking forward to seeing you so very much."

"I'm sorry," was all that Margaret managed to say. "I do not mean to disappoint you."

"You are very stubborn in your anger," continued Elizabeth in a whiny kind of voice that always raised the hackles on the back of Margaret's neck. "How many years has it been since our disagreement? Surely you cannot still be dwelling on the past. After all of these years, does my decision to leave the Velvet Room still trouble you so much? And yet I have explained to you my reasons."

"A smiling, dark-haired girl," murmured Margaret. "Her soul is in danger of destruction at the ends of the earth. She is…someone for whom you once cared very much."

Elizabeth nodded eagerly. "Yes. Yes, she is important to me. She laughed with me, and cried with me. She showed me an open space within my heart of which I had been unaware. She taught me all about this wonderful, mysterious world. It would be wrong of me to abandon her to her fate after she has given me so many beautiful gifts. She touched my heart. You can understand that, can't you? After all, you, too, have made a choice. Your heart has been touched by a human, not once now, but twice. How much do you care for this Ryotaro Dojima? How does he make you feel? Think about that, and I think you really will understand. You, too, care for him enough to abandon everything for him. In order to save him, you chose to leave the Velvet Room behind. You and I are so alike, sister. You do see it, do you not?"

For some reason the longer she listened to Elizabeth speak, the angrier Margaret became. There was a sadness and a frustration growing inside her as well that she couldn't quite pinpoint or claim to understanding. Taking a deep breath, she shook her head, and turned slightly away from Elizabeth, suddenly unwilling to look her obnoxiously enthusiastic sister in the eye.

"I did not choose to leave," Margaret reminded Elizabeth firmly. "I was cast out for my errors of judgment, but that in itself is irrelevant. I am not like you. We are not alike at all."

Elizabeth sighed, and planted her hands on her hips. "But, Margaret-!"

"Ryotaro asked me something today, after you left the restaurant," continued Margaret inexorably, dismissing Elizabeth's protests. "He asked me about our…parents. He remarked upon the fact that we are very similar in appearance, and he questioned me about the appearances of our parents. He told stories, as well, of his own parents. I…I did not know what to say. It is good that he was not really listening for an answer. I am tired of making up stories, and lies. I have no parents in this world, or in any world. I have only my master, my creator, and…you."

Elizabeth fell silent at last, looking puzzled and uncertain.

"They say," mused Margaret, "that between families, there is a bond. It is a bond defined by the word 'family' itself. Many say that the bond cannot be severed in any trying circumstance, because of the very nature of the meaning of 'family.' I do not understand what that means. I have considered before that the entire concept of 'family' must be a platitude, designed only to comfort those who seek solace in familiar and static concepts. I know, of course, that it is impossible for the bonds of 'family' to be as unyielding as humans believe, because you and I are sisters, and thus we fall easily under the category of 'family'. Yet the bond you shared with this dark-haired girl called you away from me. That bond was stronger than any pretense of 'family,' it seems. That bond overcame the bond that we are, by human standards, entirely supposed to share."

"Margaret," said Elizabeth, much more quietly and sedately than she'd spoken before. "I was not aware that you yearned for the ties of familial affection. Perhaps, now that I have returned-!"

Margaret shook her head. "Years ago," she murmured, "I felt those ties very strongly. But this bond was more fragile than we realized. I only understand that now, when it is too late."

Elizabeth opened her mouth, but didn't seem to have anything really to say. Suddenly feeling very tried, Margaret turned around and headed for the bus stop.

"Please, wait!" called Elizabeth, as Margaret started off. "Maggie-!"

Margaret shook her head. "Sometimes," she whispered, "the heart is shaken more by a single action than by a thousand words."


	3. Three: The Dark Side of the Moon

**Author's Note: **So, technically I shouldn't be posting this yet. Shinjiro hasn't actually appeared in **The Wildest Dreams**. Junpei did mention him in Chapter Six, though, so I guess I can get away with releasing this now.

I've been itching to write a Shinjiro piece lately. Like…I had almost forgotten how much I loved him until I replayed P3P. Now I remember.

Oh, and that other guy's in this story, too. What was his name? Aki-something? Eh, who cares.

(I'm kidding. Sort of. )

This story takes place directly after Chapter Six of **The Wildest Dreams.** WARNING: It's depressing as crap.

**Three: Dark Side of the Moon**

It was hard to keep track of time in the hospital.

The windows in the room were always closed, and there was always a weird, artificial light coming off of the monitor screen. Little tiny lights on machines flashed while the machines themselves made odd mechanical beeping noises. Sometimes, when he was feeling perversely imaginative, Shinjiro Aragaki thought that the entire room felt like one of those weird giant robots from out of the comic books that Ken Amada had read when he was a kid.

_How long ago was that? Ugh, who knows? _He couldn't remember. Maybe it was the drugs, or the lack of sunlight, or the way the days blended together, but time had lost its linear flow, somehow.

Sometimes, the television told him what day it was. The last time he'd turned it on, there had been a timestamp on the bottom that read "February 2021."

"Damn," muttered Shinjiro. "That long?"

He guessed that there wouldn't be any more comic books for Ken Amada. He hadn't seen Ken in a very long time. _Maybe he's married with kids and a job by now, _Shinjiro mused to himself. _Good for him. That's how it should be, right?_

At that moment, the door opened, and a white-clad nurse ushered a tall man into the room. The man was lithe and muscular, with short-cropped, silver hair. He was wearing a track suit, and there was a cut along the left side of his jaw that looked as though it had just started healing.

"Mitsuru said you wanted to see me," muttered the newcomer.

"Yeah." Shinjiro looked around for somewhere to sit. As if on cue, the nurse moved in, located a chair, and placed it alongside Shinjiro's cot. "Thanks," he muttered, as the nurse left the room, closing the door behind her.

"So?" Akihiko sat down in the chair. "What is it this time?"

"Like you don't know?" Shinjiro shook his head. "Tch, come on. You knew I was gonna find out, right? All I do here is sit and watch the damn TV all day."

Akihiko shifted in his seat, looking cagey and annoyed. "I don't know what you're getting at," he mumbled.

"Oh yeah? Is that so?" Shinjiro tried propping himself up on his elbows so that he could actually look Akihiko in the face. Akihiko scowled at the floor, and didn't seem willing to meet his old friend's eyes. "I'm talking about that underground boxing ring they busted a couple of days ago on the island. It was all over the news. A bunch of big guys were getting together at night to beat the shit out of each other in some asshole's basement. You hear about that? Somebody got a photograph of this one guy named Sanada knocking some poor sap into the back wall."

Akihiko didn't say anything. He seethed in silence, clenching his fists on his lap.

"Well?" Shinjiro leaned forward, and felt his world lurch as his head began to swim in response to his change in position. "Got anything to say for yourself, Aki? Hell, aren't you supposed to be a cop?"

"I don't have to listen to this from you," snarled Akihiko. "I just had to let off some steam, got it? Anyway, the gym at the station just isn't cutting it anymore. I need to be in real combat situations. You can't train for emergencies if you're never face to face with an actual opponent. I need to-!"

"Shut up." Shinjiro shook his head. "Don't make excuses. You're supposed to be a representative of justice, right? So maybe it's time to grow up and stop acting like some kind of angry-ass rebel without a cause."

Akihiko's eyes narrowed, and he got abruptly to his feet. "What did you say to me?"

"What, you gonna hit me?" Shinjiro tried to laugh, but the laughs dissolved quickly into a fit of coughing that wracked his entire frame. "The hell you are," he muttered around the onslaught of coughing. "I can…still take you, you know. B-bring it on…"

"Give me a break." Akihiko sighed, looking worried, and began moving towards the door. "Hang on, I'll call a nurse. You just-!"

"Forget it." Shinjiro took a deep breath, and the coughing finally began to subside. He felt weak, miserable, and pissed off at his own incapacity. "I don't want a damn nurse. Come back here. I'm not done with you, yet."

For a moment, it looked like Akihiko was going to ignore him. Then he frowned, bit his lip, and returned to the chair.

"I know what this is," Shinjiro told him, not quite as aggressively as before. Now that he really looked at it, he realized that the wound on Akihiko's jaw was a lot worse than he'd thought when he'd first noticed it. It looked like someone had really landed a good punch on him. "Nothing's really changed after all, huh? You're still living in the past. First, it was Miki. Now, it's Minako. Like you really needed another reason to feel sorry for yourself."

"Shinji-!" began Akihiko, but Shinjiro didn't let him interrupt.

"You told me something all those years ago," he went on, trying not to think about the pain in his head, the bleariness or the soreness in his throat that always came after coughing fit. "You said that you were all gonna live your lives for her. You know, you were gonna go out there and change the fucking world for the better…isn't that right? You were all so damn confident. So, what happened? When did you turn back into the guy who can't forgive the shit that happened a long time ago? That's not what she would have wanted. You're breaking your promise to her. That should mean something to you. It should make you feel like an ass, at least."

Akihiko looked miserable. There was less anger in his face, now, and his whole body was beginning to slump in the chair, as though Shinjiro really had knocked him down. "We can't change the world," he muttered. "We were just kids back then, when we said that shit about how we were gonna live to make the world a better place. The world's not…gonna be a better place. Nobody knows how messed up life is better than a cop. The crap I've seen...you can't just make that go away. Everybody's out there for themselves. The crime rates are going up. The suicide rates are going up. What the fuck am I supposed to do about that? There's no way for one person to change the world, no matter what dumb shit we thought when we were in school. More and more, lately, I've been feeling like…like she died for nothing. How am I supposed to accept that?"

For a long time, neither of them said anything. The monitors continued to flash, and the machines continued to beep. Shinjiro's head swam and his vision blurred. In the back of his mind, he saw the face of a girl he'd once known, smiling out of those unusual, jarring red eyes.

"Anyway," muttered Akihiko, "you don't have any right to be talking to me like this. You haven't let go of the past any more than I have. I know you still think about her. You think she'd want to see you here stuck in here in this hospital? She wouldn't have wanted you to stop fighting."

Shinjiro snorted out a laugh. "Hey, I never made any damn promises like the rest of you. Got nothing to be ashamed of. Anyway, I'm dying. I don't have to answer to anybody."

"You're not dying," insisted Akihiko. "You're not-!"

"Oh yeah?" Shinjiro was exhausted. He tried fighting against it, but his body didn't seem to have any more fight left in it. "Prove it," he muttered, as his eyelids began to drift shut. Beside him, he heard Akihiko shift in the chair. Something warm settled down over him, and he realized in that last conscious moment that someone had covered him with a blanket.


	4. Four: The Way it Was

**Author's Note: **So, **EMD23** has been asking me a bunch of interesting questions about my motivations for writing this story. According to him, the members of SEES were all really pretty happy and were prepared to move on with their lives at the end of The Answer, and by the time they'd gotten to Arena, they had already moved on with their lives. So, even if we're assuming that Arena didn't happen in Minako's universe, what gives? Why is everyone so miserable in this story? What changed to make them feel that way?

Excellent question, **EMD23.** I'm gonna go ahead and answer that question with this chapter…because I think it's a valid question, and you all may be curious as well.

This story takes place after Chapter Six of **The Wildest Dreams**. Obviously.

WARNING: This is a bit of a rant, and contains very little action of any kind. It's…more of an introspective piece.

**Four: The Way it Was**

After leaving that other world, and saying an awkward, anxiety-laden goodbye to the rest of the Inaba persona users, Junpei wasn't sure what to do with himself. He felt restless and antsy, unable to concentrate on anything but the idea of the trial that would take place in the TV world the following evening. He'd said he was ready. He'd said it as quickly as he could, because he was worried that if he'd given himself any more time to think about it, he'd have managed to talk himself out of it, or one of the others would have.

The truth, of course, was that he was anything but ready. In fact he was doing his best not to freak out. When he really thought about it, he hadn't understood too much of what that Suzume person had said, and the others had all looked pretty unhappy about it.

_Then again, _he thought, _what the hell other choice do I have? If I back out of this now, I'm gonna be kicking myself for the rest of my life, wondering if maybe it woulda worked. Nah, this has to happen. I have to know…or I'll never be able to live it down. _

He drove around distractedly for a while until he found himself parked outside of the Yasoinaba station. It had gotten dark out, and the trains had stopped running hours ago. Junpei got out of the car and looked around. The whole place was apparently deserted.

At least, that was what Junpei thought, until someone stood up from one of the benches and made his way towards Junpei through the gloom. Junpei's hand went reflexively to his evoker in the pocket of his jeans, but the shadowy figure turned out to be a very tired-looking Yu Narukami.

"What the hell, man?" muttered Junpei, relaxing back against the hood of the car. "You scared the crap out of me. How come you don't make any noise when you move? It's…pretty weird. It's like you're some kind of ghost or something."

Yu laughed a little under his breath. "You're not the first person to ask me that," he replied. "Chie's always giving me a hard time about it. I have to make a big deal of banging the door closed behind me when I come in. I've gotten kicked more than once when I've come in too quietly and surprised her in the middle of something. She has…very good reflexes."

"Yeah…" Junpei frowned thoughtfully. "I bet you're pretty good in a fight, though. I mean, if the shadows can't hear you coming, then you can sneak right up on 'em! This kid I used to fight with, Ken Amada…he was kinda like that. He was real quiet all the time. Uh...Mina-tan always said you could hear me coming a mile away, though."

Yu resumed his seat on the bench, and Junpei drifted over to join him.

"There won't be any more trains today," said Yu.

Junpei nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I was just driving around trying to blow off some steam. I feel like my head's gonna explode with all the stuff we tried to cram into it today. You know what I'm saying?"

"Yes. I…can definitely understand that," sighed Yu. "Life in Inaba is definitely never boring. Every time we feel like we've finished our task and are ready to move on, something else exciting happens."

"Oh…and this time, that 'something' was me, right?" Junpei gave Yu and uncomfortable little smile. "Uh, sorry about that. Look, I never said you had to help, or anything."

Yu didn't say anything for a moment. Junpei, suddenly worried that he'd offended him, began frantically backtracking.

"But, man," he began, "I'm so glad you are gonna help. Look, I'm totally out of luck when it comes to any of the guys back home, so you and your friends showed up just when I needed you. I mean, without you guys, I'd be totally on my own. When my persona comes out tomorrow, we're gonna have to fight it, right? How am I supposed to fight a persona by myself, without, uh…without a persona? That's crazy. There's no way-!"

"Why don't your friends want to help you?" interrupted Yu.

Junpei stopped and stared at him. It was almost impossible to make Yu's face out in the dark. The guy was inscrutable enough as it was, but hidden in shadow like that he was almost creepily unreadable. It sent a little shiver down Junpei's spine, which he willed himself to ignore.

"I told you, right?" he reminded Yu. "They're all still stuck on the idea that Mina-tan 'died for the greater good.' She 'wanted it this way,' or something like that. It's….kinda disgusting how they can just go on with their lives after something like that. All they care about is their own damn happiness. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to be happy? I'm supposed to just forget about what happened? Sheesh, that's crazy. You don't just let something like that go. It sticks with you, forever and ever. She meant a lot to me."

The more Yu stared at him, the more uncomfortable Junpei felt. He knew that he was rambling and that some of the things he was saying were starting to get jumbled and make no sense, but something about the way Yu was looking at him unsettled him. _This guy is way too relaxed, _he thought. _Yeah, there's something definitely weird about that. _He was reminded suddenly of the way that Minako had used to look at him calmly with one eyebrow raised, waiting patiently for him to finish ranting about whatever had pissed him off at that particular moment.

_Guess a leader's gotta be pretty chill, _he reasoned with himself. _Kinda makes me feel like an asshole, though, going on like this. And he's three years younger than me, too…damn. _

"For thirteen years, then, you've been this miserable?" For some reason, Yu sounded skeptical. "I'm sorry, but, that's hard to believe. Why show up here, after thirteen years, suddenly looking for answers? It's strange to me that you'd sit on this for thirteen years, doing nothing. Why not start searching for a way to save her as soon as you possibly could? Why now?"

"You know," muttered Junpei, "that whole thing with her face on the TV. It reminded me."

"It's more than that," insisted Yu. "I want to know what this is really about."

Junpei sighed. "Jeez…you're a suspicious guy, huh?"

"It's my job to protect my team," returned Yu quietly. "I'm not interested in letting any of us get involved with something dangerous without a very good reason. If there's anything that you're not telling us, then I need to know what it is before we go into battle, ro get any further into this. Do you understand?"

"Y-yeah…sure, I understand. Anyway, it's nothing like that." He shook his head. "It's not like anything's changed lately, or I suddenly want this any more than I did before. It's just…you get older, you know? Stuff starts to make more and more sense the farther you go through life. Aw, damn, I sound like some old fart. Um…crap, how do I put this?"

Yu sat quietly, waiting while Junpei tried to collect his thoughts. Eventually, Junpei sat up a little straighter in his chair, and took a deep breath.

"So, what do you do?" asked Junpei. "Like, for a job?"

For the first time, Yu looked startled. "I'm a teacher," he told him. "I teach English at Yasogami. Before I moved here, I worked as a secretary in the office of a candidate for local government back in the city."

"Oh, yeah?" Junpei was impressed. "So, a smart guy, right?"

Yu didn't seem to have anything to say to that.

"Right, well, I'm a janitor in a school basement," Junpei reminded him. "Before that, I sold comic books at a corner store in Iwatodai. Before that, I coached a kids' baseball team. Sure, I never made a lot of money, and I ate a ton of ramen and beef bowls back then, but I was pretty happy. Even when I worked in the comic book store, I figured I was making some kind of difference in those kids' lives, right? The store gave 'em some place to go when they were bored. Reading kept 'em off the streets. Baseball was a good way for those kids to let off steam and hit stuff without hurting anybody. It was a good life. I was all like, 'yeah, I'm making a difference. Mina-tan would have liked this. She would been a fan of what I'm doing with myself, now.'"

Yu smiled. "I agree. I didn't know her, but based on what you've told us about her, I think she would have liked that."

Junpei imagined the way that Minako had dealt with the news that Ken had arrived at the dorm all those years ago. He could still see the welcoming smile on her face, and hear her encouraging Ken to do his best. She'd confided in Junpei on more than one occasion that she was worried about Ken not having a chance at a real childhood. She'd also started panicking when Ken had professed his love to her, which was something that Junpei was sure Ken wouldn't have wanted him to know about.

"Yeah, maybe," h e mumbled. "She liked kids, anyway. But, uh, that's not the point. Look, what I'm saying is that it felt good, for a while. I was pretty much like everybody else. I moved on. I figured 'this is what she would have wanted me to do.' But…I dunno. After a while, I stopped being so sure."

Off in the distance somewhere, someone shouted something unintelligible. There was the sound of running footsteps, and then the screech of a car horn. Junpei grimaced.

"That was my uncle's voice," said Yu, looking over his shoulder in the direction of the noise. "Working late tonight, I guess."

"Oh, right…your uncle's a cop, huh?" Junpei shrugged. "The cops back in Iwatodai weren't so hot. They'd either run you down and shout at you for no reason at all, or they'd let all sorts of shit go on without doing anything about it. We even had this one cop who camped out at the mall and sold the weapons he'd taken off local punks to other people. That…that can't really be legal, right?"

"Corruption in the police was a problem in the city where I lived, too," agreed Yu. "We don't have that happen around here very much, though. Now that my uncle's in charge, nobody really dares."

Junpei gazed down at the pavement, gritting his teeth. "Right…corruption. But, like, it's not just cops. We had all these gangs that ran around Iwatodai, too. They'd try to sell drugs to all the kids in the neighborhood. A couple of the older guys stopped coming to baseball practice because they decided to join one of the gangs…and then one of the other guys on the team got beaten up by some punks hanging out in an alley somewhere, and he had to be in the hospital for months. Some of those same guys in that one gang used to hang out behind the comic book store, and one day I stayed late, went out back and started shouting at them. It, uh, didn't get violent, or anything, but the next day they'd egged the shit out of the front of the store, and…haha, it was messy as hell to clean up. No big deal, right? But…that kid who got hurt never came back to the team. Never saw him at the store again, either. Guess maybe he was too freaked out to show up anywhere that I was…or maybe they talked him out of doing 'lame' stuff like reading comic books and playing baseball."

_How old was that kid? Can't remember. Something like…twelve, maybe? Yeah, that feels right. Damn, that shit starts young. I can't remember anything like that happening to me when I was in elementary school. _Junpei shook his head, feeling tired.

"Iori," began Yu. Something had changed in his voice. He sounded sympathetic, and much more human than he had. Junpei wasn't sure he was interested in sympathy. That wasn't the point of this story.

"And that wasn't the last time something like that happened, either," he went on quickly. "I mean, obviously. Kids got hurt, kids dropped out. Kids messed up and screwed around, made bad choices…and there wasn't shit I could do about it. Feels like every year, younger kids are getting sucked into all kinds of crazy crap and getting themselves killed. Doesn't matter how many teachers try to 'touch lives,' or how many coaches start to 'redirect those aggressive impulses." People don't change. We're all messed up inside, and that keeps coming out, no matter what we do. The world's not getting better I mean, hell, if kids are growing up and turning into little monsters like the ones in those back alley gangs, then the world's actually just getting worse, right? And there's nothing we can do about it."

Yu didn't seem to like that. "Everyone," he began, " has the power to change the future. You have to know that. You and your friends have already managed to stop the end of the world. You changed the future. You made the world a better place. Isn't that what you were fighting for?"

"Yeah, well, that's what we said we were doing," muttered Junpei. "Right, sure, back then we were all so friggin' pumped about defeating Nyx that we figured we could do anything! We could change the world and make it better. World peace! Goodwill and kindness. Kumba-fucking-ya, you know?" Junpei could feel his face starting to get hot as he tried not to let that same shame and anger overtake him that he now felt every time he thought of the promise he'd made with the others after discovering Erebus. "But in the end, the world still sucks. People are creeps and assholes. Kids get themselves killed. We all get stuck in dead-end jobs that we hate in the middle of dead-end towns like this one, and that's…that's just life. That's just the way it is. It's like that for everybody, not just for me. I'm nobody special. The whole damn world's like that."

Again, the sound of footsteps echoed somewhere nearby. This time, Junpei heard the sound of someone's laughter.

"The greater good?" finished Junpei miserably. "There isn't any 'greater good.' Nobody else seems to want to work much for the world that we want. And…if I can't keep my promise to her, then how come I have to keep living without her? If this is all we've got to look forward to, then what the hell'd she die for, anyway?"


	5. Five: Say Something

**Author's Note: **So, maybe some of you have hard this song "Say Something" by A Great Big World. I turned the radio on and heard it the other day, and ever since then I haven't been able to get it out of my head.

Since I've been listening to it non-stop for the past hour at least, and I'm certain my roommate is sick to death of hearing it through the walls, I figure it's time to see if maybe I can write something about it, or at least be inspired by it.

Here we go. Turning on the music, and starting the freewrite…now.

**Five: Say Something**

"So," whispered Yukari, "I guess this is it, Minako. This time, I'm really leaving."

She was sitting on the steps of the Wild Duck Burger building in the Iwatodai strip mall after dark, listening to the sounds of some teenagers laughing and messing with each other in the back alley. Wild Duck Burger was already closed for the night, and so were most of the other places of business nearby.

"I don't know why I came here," she said to no one in particular. "It's not like there's anything left for me to do here, but…you know, this was the place. I mean, this was the place where I first told you how I really felt. I told you about my parents, and about how I felt like there was this weird connection between us, and then I got all serious and started to cry…" She laughed, shaking her head. "Yeah, right here, in the middle of Wuck. It was such a mess. You must have been so embarrassed."

The voices of the rowdy teenagers faded away as they abandoned their hangout and moved off into the darkness.

"It's been a long time since then, huh?" murmured Yukari. "I keep coming back to this place, even though I never really liked the food. I mean…nobody likes the food here, right? Who actually wants to eat something called a 'wild duck burger?' I don't want to know what it's made of, anyway. I'm sure if I found out I'd just freak out and get sick to my stomach."

Of course, no one answered. Beginning to feel just a bit uncomfortable about sitting and talking to herself like this, Yukari took a quick look around. It looked as though the sign for the "Bookworms" store had been painted over. The old couple who had worked there had passed away peacefully in their sleep a year or so ago, and Yukari had heard that there hadn't been anyone for them to leave the store to. Someone else had bought it, probably. Another business was getting ready to move in.

"Everything changes," she sighed, "but not enough for me. I mean…I guess it's no secret that I never really let go. I don't want to let go. I don't have to. No one can tell me what it is and isn't okay to feel, right? Isn't that something that you would have said? I think it sounds like you. In my head, I like to hear you say it, sometimes. That's probably stupid, but…"

She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. "Okay. Okay, I think I'm ready to tell you. I'm leaving this place and I'm going to Tokyo. There's a movie being filmed there about a crime-fighting super girl with magical powers. I mean…okay, it sounds kinda like a shoujo thing, but I'll check it out anyway. I think I want to audition, even if I am a little too old for stuff like that. I'll give it a try and see where it goes, anyway. Maybe…maybe the movie is just an excuse, though. Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to get away from this place. Can you blame me?"

She stopped, and bit her lip. "There, I said it. Anyway, I'm sick and tired of the memories. I don't want anything more to do with this place. Every time I turn a corner I see something else that I can't share with you anymore. I don't want to be in any of the old places where we used to hang out. I don't want to run into anyone that we used to know. I'd just want to talk to you about it, but you aren't there. Don't you see? There's no point in my staying here. It just hurts, and what for? There's no point to it anymore."

For some reason, tears were starting to well up in Yukari's eyes. _No, _she thought. _I'm not going to cry. That would be dumb. There's nothing to cry about! _

"I decided a while ago that I was going to do this," she went on. "Nobody's trying to stop me. They all say they understand, but I know they don't. I know they're all rolling their eyes at me behind my back, waiting for me to 'get over it' and 'move on.' I don't care what they say. Most people would never get this. I guess that's a good thing, too. I mean…it's not like I'd wish it on anyone."

Behind one of the shops, a door slammed. Yukari started and got to her feet, listening to the sounds of receding footsteps. Then she settled back down on the step, feeling silly.

"The truth is that I'm running out of places to go," she whispered. "I can't go back to Kyoto. I'd just have to face my Dad, there. I…I want my Dad to think that I'm happy. I want him to be proud of me. He can't be proud of me if he sees me now. I don't want him to be sad about how this all turned out. I can't stay here, so…there has to be somewhere else for me. I'll never know if I don't look, right? And it's not like I'm running away. I'm not running. I'm just moving on. Everybody has the right to do that."

Again, the strip mall was completely silent. Yukari wondered what time it was. She wondered if her roommates had noticed that she wasn't home.

"If I get into the movie, will you be able to see it where you are?" she asked.""I hope so. I mean…even if I totally suck at acting, I want you to see it. I want you to know that I'm doing okay. I…want to know that I'm doing okay. I don't know if I'll believe it if you don't. I just…I want you to tell me what to do. I want you to tell me that this is the right thing to do. You were always so good at encouraging me, or setting me off in the right direction. Everything always made so much more sense after I talked to you about it, even if I already knew what the right thing was from the start."

A few tears fell from Yukari's eyes to the pavement. She squeezed her eyes shut and angrily told herself to stop crying.

"But if you want to talk me out of this," she murmured, "now's your chance. I'm listening. So? Say something, already."


	6. Six: The Ice Palace

**Author's Note: **I'm really very behind on this story, and I don't have a good excuse. Tomorrow's snow day will be spent trying to catch up. I have to create a Mitsuru piece and an Aigis piece at least.

Thank you for being patient with me.

This piece was, as mine so often are, the product of a freewrite at four AM. It's not exactly what I expected, but I think I'm surprisingly pleased with it.

**Six: The Ice Palace**

Mitsuru Kurosawa, nee Kirijo sat in the beautifully furnished living room of the four story Kirijo family mansion, and gazed out the window at the falling snow.

The clean white snow, she thought, falling against the backdrop of the glistening white walls of the marble Kirijo mansion would only give further credence to the foolish stories that the local children told about the Kirijo home. According to local childish folklore, the mansion was really a beautiful palace made of perennial ice, hiding away a secret princess with a heart made of ice who turned everything she looked on into the same sort of ice that was lodged in her heart.

_What nonsense, _scoffed Mitsuru. _It's not even a very appealing fairytale._

No doubt, she knew, the story had arisen and gathered more and more popularity after the release of a widely successful new film featuring an ice queen and her terrible, powerful secret. Mitsuru had not seen the movie herself, but she had seen the advertisements frequently enough on television.

Mitsuru, of course, did not often go to the movies. She rarely had time to waste on that sort of thing.

Occasionally, one of the wives of the top Kirijo Group executives would invite Mitsuru out to the movies, or to go shopping, or to gossip over a cup of alarmingly expensive coffee in her luxurious vacation home. It wouldn't have been appropriate for the men in charge to attempt to ply Mitsuru themselves with gifts or nights on the town. It would have been forward and unbecoming for them to have approached Mitsuru that way, even if she was, technically, the head of the Kirijo Corporation in her own right. Instead, it was up to the executives' wives to do the dirty work; to learn as much as they could about Mitsuru's likes and dislikes; her needs and desires. They wheedled, pleaded, cajoled and complained, doing everything within their power to win Mitsuru over to the sides of their husbands; to try and make her see things in the same light by which their husbands saw the world.

Mitsuru didn't blame them. She didn't hate them. Even if she didn't particularly enjoy their company, she understood the value of loyalty, and loyalty to a husband was as legitimate in her mind as loyalty to a cause.

Still, it had become clear to Mitsuru long ago that all of her relationships would be interminably and unchangeably business relationships. She could never, for example invite the wife of an important Kirijo Group executive out for coffee just to chat about her life or to pour out her troubles to a willing ear. None of them would have any hope of understanding the difficulties that she faced as a businesswoman. Most of them had never really considered business in their lives. They understood the necessity of following orders to further another person's future, but none of them had ever had to deal with the nature of the decision making process, or the tribulations of the boardroom.

Mitsuru quite often felt alone.

There had been a time when she'd preferred it that way, and when she'd been disgusted by the social politics of the business world. At first, she'd wanted nothing to do with businessmen's wives or even the executives themselves. She'd found their grasping ways appalling and indicative of the horrible direction in which the world had begun to turn.

Were these, she'd wondered, really the people she'd fought to protect? Were these selfish, money-grubbing hoarders the people who would occupy the world she'd sacrificed so much to save?

It was a sobering thought. Mitsuru hadn't wanted any part of their professionally-driven, soulless sort of order. Gone were the days of hope, friendship, and uniting in the hope of achieving a common goal. Gone were partnerships based on anything but greed.

There was greed everywhere Mitsuru looked, now. Greed lurked in everyone's eyes, in everyone's meaningless flattery and behind every extravagant gift she received. The human desire for wealth, material gain and power made her sick, and she could see the traces of the face of Erebus in their fake and calculated smiles.

Not that everyone was like that, of course. Just when Mitsuru had been sure that she didn't have a friend in the world, there had been Hiroshi.

Detective Hiroshi Kurosawa, formerly Officer Kurosawa of Mitsuru's own hometown wasn't interested in money, flattery, or power. Hiroshi Kurosawa didn't care about moving up in the world or finding a comfortable place to feed his fortune. He wasn't the kind of man to give gifts, or even to give compliments. He was so straightforward that sometimes his bluntness hurt. He was loyal to a fault, completely focused on his work, determined to parse right from wrong, good from evil, and to do his duty by society at all costs, regardless of personal interests or interpersonal connections.

He was unlike every single other person in Mitsuru's life, and she treasured that difference. He was refreshingly disconnected from the horrifying world of business politics, and he was her beacon of hope for humanity.

When she married him, there had been scandalous headlines in the paper. Everyone had talked, and some of them had talked none too quietly and without even any fake friendliness about what Mitsuru's father, Takeharu Kirijo would have said. Hiroshi was, after all, a much older man; more than twenty years older than Mitsuru herself. Hiroshi had nothing to give the Kirijo family; no status, no name, and no clout.

He did, however, give something significant to Mitsuru. He gave her a moment of peace in the midst of the storm.

Now, however, four years after their marriage, something still wasn't quite right.

For some reason, she was still so often alone, just as she was now, in her living room, with a million and one things to do, and so little motivation to do them.

The trouble was, of course, that Hiroshi wasn't really a part of Mitsuru's world. He was a policeman first and foremost, and while he was out fighting the fight for justice and the good of mankind, Mitsuru was at her board meeting, or on her cell phone, or negotiating, or entertaining wives.

At the end of the day, when they sat across the alarmingly large oaken dining table from each other, they ate dinner in silence. If Mitsuru tried to talk about her day, Hiroshi lost interest quickly, or completely failed to see why it mattered that Mrs. Hayakawa had been rude to Mrs. Chiaki, or that Mr. Aiba had donated a large sum of money to a cause about which neither of them particularly cared. The kind of people that Mitsuru dealt with on a daily basis were exactly the kind of people that Hiroshi didn't have any interest in understanding.

Of course, when Hiroshi tried to talk about his day, all Mitsuru tended to feel was regret. She missed the right for justice. She missed knowing right from wrong. She missed certainty, black and white.

These days, Hiroshi took most of his meals with his coworkers, sometimes working late into the night they way he'd done long ago when Mitsuru had been in high school and they'd essentially fought on the same side.

Even if they were still on the same side, Mitsuru felt that they were now eons away from each other in every possible way.

Just like the ice queen in the magical frozen palace, then, Mitsuru was vaguely and sadly aware that she might always live in her own little world.


	7. Seven: Dubious Justice

**Author's Note: **Still plugging away at this one. I find that I'm intrigued yet again by the P3 characters, and that I desperately want to write about them, but for some reason it's not coming as easily as I'd hoped. Maybe I'll do some freewriting later, to see if I can get the creative juices flowing in P3's direction again.

**Seven: Dubious Justice**

Aigis, dressed as usual in her Kirijo Corporation suit and tie, waited by the entrance to Showa University's new auditorium.

_Showa University, _she thought, idly accessing her databanks for any useful information on her present location, more out of boredom than for any other reason. _A medical university sharing its campus with The British School in Tokyo. Previously known as "Showa Medical University." The reason for the name change is unrecorded. Perhaps the time allotted for inscribing "Showa Medical University" on the diplomas was excessive. Perhaps the school wished to encourage students coming from backgrounds other than medicine. It doesn't really matter. _

"He's late," murmured Mitsuru, glancing at her watch. "Aigis, are you sure that we're in the right place? Maybe he's waiting for us elsewhere. This campus is much larger than I expected."

Aigis reflected that the university campus was, in fact, quite small in comparison to several other college campuses that she was aware of. Mitsuru, she thought, looked tired.

"I am certain that this is the place," Aigis assured her employer. "We must be patient. The process of graduation seems to involve a lot of discussion and the greeting of a great number of people. This may take some time."

"No doubt," murmured Mitsuru. "I'm sure that several people wish to congratulate him."

Group after group of chattering, excited students dressed in their graduation best came around the corner, but Aigis didn't see her quarry anywhere. Finally, she caught sight of Ken Amada, clearly trying to shake off an enthusiastic older woman who was talking animatedly to the back of his head.

"Oh, hello." Ken nodded at Aigis and Mitsuru, then turned and gave the talkative women an apologetic little smile. "Um…excuse me, please. My friends are here."

"Friends? Oh, how lovely!" The talkative woman beamed at him. "Do enjoy yourself, Ken-kun. You've been such a devoted student. I'll be sorry to see you go!" She let out a little sigh, shot Mitsuru and Aigis a quick smile, and returned in the direction from which she'd come. Ken, looking a little relieved, hurried to join Aigis and Mitsuru.

"Sorry I'm late," he said. "I was surprised when I got your message. I didn't think you'd make it. You're usually so busy with work. Um…thanks for coming."

Mitsuru smiled warmly at him. "I'm very glad that I could be here. This is a momentous occasion for all of us. It would have been sad if I'd had to miss it."

"Congratulations, Ken-kun," murmured Aigis. "I, too, am delighted to have been here to see how much you've grown."

Ken looked self-consciously down at his suit and tie. He was a little short for his twenty three years, but he carried himself well, Aigis thought. She couldn't help smiling to herself, remembering the serious and dedicated little boy that she'd once shared a dorm and a fate with back in Iwatodai. Even if he was older and theoretically wiser, his face was still the face of that little boy.

"As we discussed," Mitsuru was saying, "I've brought your graduation present."

Aigis dutifully handed Ken a large white envelope. Ken accepted it eagerly. "This…" he muttered. "This is…?"

"It's an offer of employment from the Kirijo Corporation Medical Board," Mitsuru informed him, smiling slightly at the way his eyes lit up as he tore the envelope open. "The offer was, of course, contingent on your graduation from an acceptable medical program, but I think we can now make it official. We're looking forward to your involvement in the future of the corporation."

Ken was now excitedly reading over the single folded sheet of paper that the envelope had contained. Aigis watched his lips moving as he read the document. Abruptly, he stopped, and looked confused for a moment.

"Th-thank you very much," he muttered, "but this isn't right. I'm supposed to be getting a job at Iwatodai Memorial Hospital. That's what you said before."

"Yes, that's true." Mitsuru sighed. "Unfortunately…"

"But this letter says that I'm going to be working somewhere else." Ken shook his head. "That's wrong, isn't it? Um, did your secretary make a mistake?"

Aigis and Mitsuru exchanged a worried look.

"Amada-san," began Mitsuru, reverting to formalities in the face of her discomfort. "Unfortunately, there's been a change of plan. Iwatodai Memorial Hospital is fully staffed at the moment, while several other hospitals are understaffed and are desperate for competent doctors."

"But…this hospital," insisted Ken, jabbing his finger at the name on the document. "It's one of those celebrity hospitals, right? Isn't this the one that's always on the news? Lots of rich people go here when they aren't even sick. Last week, I heard that Midori Takaoka was admitted just so that she could get away from all the photographers. She stayed for a week. That's…that's not fair. What about all the sick people? There needs to be space left for them!"

"Ken-kun," murmured Aigis helplessly.

"You'll be generously compensated for your time and effort," said Mitsuru quietly. Aigis could see that Mitsuru wasn't looking at Ken anymore. She didn't seem to be able to bring herself to meet his eyes.

"Compensated?" Ken stared at her. "Compensated?" His voice rose angrily, and for a second he was the bitter, hot-headed child that Aigis remembered so well from her own school days. "I don't want to be compensated! You know why I want to go to Iwatodai, senpai! Shinjiro-senpai's still there. He gave me back this life! I'm supposed to be using it for something. I want to use it to make a difference, just like he said. I have to go to Iwatodai, senpai. You promised me that I could go!"

"I'm sorry." Mitsuru shook her head unhappily. "Contrary to how it may appear, I do not make all of the decisions for the Kirijo Corporation. I have very little involvement, in fact, in the decisions of the Medical Board. I made the suggestion, but I was voted down. There wasn't anything I could have done. I'm so sorry, but…"

"Forget it." Ken thrust the paper at Aigis, who took it. "I guess I should have known this would happen. I had my doubts about working for the Kirijo Corporation anyway."

"Doubts?" asked Mitsuru.

"Yes." Ken clenched his fists. "I thought you were supposed to be using your company to fix the mistakes we made all those years ago, but…that never happened, did it, senpai?" He glared at her. "What ever happened to 'atoning for the past?' This isn't what I got my life back for. I want to change things. I'm going to make a difference."

"What will you do?" asked Aigis.  
Ken opened his mouth, closed it, and then swallowed hard. "I don't know," he bit out. "I don't know, but there has to be something. I'm going to find some place that I can make up for the past. There has to be something that I can help with…something other than this!"

They all stood for a moment, gazing wordlessly at each other. Then Ken, looking quite alarmingly as though he might be about to cry, turned around and stormed off, leaving Mitsuru and Aigis standing awkwardly in the empty auditorium.

"I was worried that something like that might happen," sighed Mitsuru. "It can't be helped, but…"

"Mitsuru-senpai," asked Aigis. "Why didn't you tell him about the Shadow Operatives' new research project? I am certain that Ken-kun would be-!"

"No." Mitsuru cut her off, shaking her head. "You're referring to our attempts to rescue her from the Seal, I assume? No, we can't tell him or anyone else about that."

"Why?" Aigis was puzzled. "This is not a burden that you should be forced to bear entirely alone."

"It's not that." Mitsuru bit her lip. "We have no reason, at this time, to believe that our attempts will be successful. I don't want to be responsible for giving any of the others false hope. If we tell them now, and then nothing comes of it, we'll only have hurt them all yet again. There's no reason for that."

Aigis couldn't help but recognize the sense in that. "Understood," she murmured.

"And besides," added Mitsuru, giving Aigis and weary little smile. "I'm not entirely alone, Aigis. I have you, after all."


	8. Eight: The Head of the Table

**Author's Note: **Well, I didn't really keep to my schedule on this one, and of that I am ashamed. I don't dislike this story, though. I think I established a lot of what I wanted to say, here, and this story ties in very effectively with **The Wildest Dreams, **as it was intended to.

Gotta set more reasonable writing goals for myself, but in the meantime, I'm going to finish this story up with two more chapters.

**Eight: The Head of the Table**

The little Shiba Inu puppy crouched next to the leg of the kitchen table and whined piteously.

"Oh…I'm sorry, Dachiko-chan," murmured Fuuka Yamagishi, glancing at the puppy from where she stood over the stove. "Are you hungry? It won't be much longer, now, I promise."

The puppy stopped whining, but gave Fuuka a long-suffering look. Then it got up, padded over to the sofa, climbed up, and curled up on one of the cushions.

Fuuka sighed. "Dachi-chan, that's not for you. You don't belong on the sofa. We'll just have to clean it again."  
Dachiko yawned, slitted his eyes, and fell asleep, regardless of Fuuka's admonition.

Smiling affectionately at the puppy despite herself, Fuuka wiped her hands on a nearby towel and stepped away from the stew she was working on. _A watched pot never boils, _she thought. _There has to be something else I can do to pass the time. It's a shame I finished my book, already. I don't really want to watch TV…_

The large clock next to the door began chiming unexpectedly, startling Fuuka. Quietly, she counted the chimes under her breath.

"One...two….three…four…five…six…seven…eight…nine…ten…eleven…twelve. Oh…it's midnight. Dachi-chan, no wonder you're so hungry. I didn't realize it was so late."

Midnight would always be a slightly uncomfortable time for Fuuka. Even though she hadn't needed to in many years, she found herself glancing furtively out the window at the darkened city streets as soon as the clock finished tolling the hour. Even at midnight, people were still milling around in this city, and cars were still driving by. Everything, in fact, was completely normal. The dark hour was gone forever, and it had been gone forever for a very long time now.

_Yes, _thought Fuuka. _It's all over. Those days are gone…and we can't ever have them back. Oh...what a horrible idea. I don't really want them back, do I? _

The stew bubbled on the stove. Dachiko made a strange sort of squeaking sound in the back of his throat as he stretched himself and yawned luxuriously for a second time. Fuuka stared blankly at the turned-ff TV screen, and wondered not for the first time what everyone else was doing with the perfectly normal lives they'd all worked so hard to restore.

_Yukari-chan's going to be in a movie, _Fuuka remembered. _That's not really "normal," is it? That's even better than normal! _The thought made her smile. _But…I haven't heard from the others in so long. I wonder where they've gone..._

"Juno," she said out loud. "Come. Help me listen, just once more."

Her magnificent persona emerged from the sea of her soul and stood, poised and prepared, in the center of the living room floor. Dachiko opened his eyes for a moment, gazed unblinkingly at the persona, then tucked his head back down between his paws and returned to his semblance of sleep.

_Where have they all gone _?_ Juno, show me. _Fuuka closed her eyes, and listened.

The traces of all her friends were so very, very far away. She could only make out the faintest echoes of their presences, scattered all over the country of Japan. She took a deep breath to help focus her mind, and concentrated as hard as she could on the little, treasured memories that were refusing to fade, even with the passage of time.

Mitsuru, she felt, was still in the Kirijo mansion, where she'd been ever since she'd graduated from high school. There was someone else there, as well; a familiar presence that Fuuka somehow knew, but yet couldn't quite recognize. That presence, or rather that man was a distant memory as well, but he was a memory that Fuuka couldn't quite call to mind. They were both in bed, but neither of them was asleep. Fuuka could imagine Mitsuru, troubled, lying awake and gazing at the ceiling, her mind full of calculations, plans, and the odd regret.

Aigis, who Fuuka knew was usually asleep at the Kirijo lab, was, for some reason, in Mitsuru's basement. She seemed to have powered down for the evening, but Fuuka could still sense that faint trace of life that Aigis, unique among machines, managed to emit. _Did she move in with Mitsuru-senpai? No, that doesn't sound right. What's going on? I wonder if maybe Mitsuru-senpai had a party, and Aigis is spending the night. No…that doesn't seem quite right either. I wonder why…?_

Ken was studying late in his apartment at Showa University, very far away in another region entirely. Fuuka couldn't feel him nearly as strongly as she could feel Mitsuru and Aigis, but she could see him vaguely and fuzzily on the edge of her consciousness. He was frustrated and concentrating hard. Fuuka decided to leave him alone to work.

Akihiko and Junpei were, for some reason, almost impossible to find. That was strange, because Fuuka hadn't had any trouble locating them only a couple of days before. Now, however, they were so far away that she could just barely touch their minds with hers, and she couldn't get any sense of what they were doing or how they were feeling.

_But, _she realized, _they're together. Wherever they are, they've found each other. That's…that's good, isn't it? _For some inexplicable reason, that realization hurt Fuuka, and there was a lump in her throat as she hurriedly let her mind relinquish them, and began seeking someone else.

Shinjiro was still in the hospital, of course. Fuuka knew that he would be there. It wasn't possible for him to be anywhere else, but she checked anyway out of the morbid and desperate hope that she'd find him still alive. She was relieved, therefore, to feel his life force, faint, weakened, and fading, but still in existence, at least. Some days, Fuuka avoided feeling for Shinjiro. She was terrified in the back of her mind that one day she might not find him there anymore. _No, _she realized. _I'm not afraid that he'll die. I know he's going to die. It's a different thing. Certainty can be horrible sometimes…_

Out of habit, Fuuka reached out for Koromaru's mind, but of course, it wasn't there. It had only been a year or so ago that he had passed quietly away in his sleep, curled up on the sofa in the same place that little Dachiko was sleeping now. He was gone from this world, and his consciousness had faded forever, but even though she could no longer reach him, Fuuka didn't feel any more pain or distress about him.

_Some things you never lose, _she reminded herself. _Even if you can't see or touch them anymore, they're always with you. Just like Koromaru and me, or Junpei and Chidori-san, or…_

Fuuka decided not to think about Minako. That was a wound, she knew, that might never really close. Even if she knew in her heart that Minako must be watching over them for somewhere, that had been different. It hadn't been lik Koromaru's quiet, gentle passing at all. After that had happened, everyone else had slowly but gradually begun slipping away.

The timer in the kitchen began beeping insistently, and Fuuka got up to go and retrieve her stew. She grabbed the bag of dog food while she was there, and poured a generous portion out for Dachiko, who instantly woke up, stood up, and bounced over to eat.

Fuuka put the stew down at the head of the table, and then sat in her usual spot and began ladling her dinner into the bowl. For a few minutes she ate in silence, proud of herself for having perfected a recipe that she'd found on the internet but hadn't ever tried before.

"I did my best," she said to no one in particular. "I can be proud of this, I think. Maybe someday, I'll have a dinner party. Everyone will taste what I've made, and they'll be so surprised. I'll have to invite all my friends…"

She glanced over at the seven empty chairs, and the seven unused place settings laid out on the table.

"Yes," she sighed. "I'd like to have a party, someday. I wonder if anyone would come. Everyone seems so busy now. Maybe I'll try for next Christmas. We can have a Christmas party. Wouldn't that be nice?"

But no one, Fuuka knew, would be coming for Christmas. No one ever came for Christmas anymore.

"Wouldn't you like that, Dachi-chan? Would you like to help me throw a party?" Fuuka smiled at Dachiko, but there was still a growing lump in her throat.

Dachiko looked over at her, ducked his head unhappily, and whined.


	9. Nine: The Beginning

**Author's Note: **Well, now I'm really cheating. One of these characters won't appear in **The Wildest Dreams** at all, and one of them doesn't appear until far later in the story, but I'm including this chapter anyway. It seems a fitting end.

**Nine: The Beginning**

The soul that had once belonged to Minako Arisato hung suspended in the midst, of time, space, light and dark, surrounded by a never ending ebb and flow of disconnected thought and feeling. Whatever semblance of consciousness she retained existed on a separate plane from that of the human world. She knew and felt everything, and nothing, was somehow aware and unaware in the same span of no time at all. Things happened in the world, and she absorbed them, using every ray of hope and glimmer of light in the darkness to help strengthen her soul's resolve and to fortify her presence, shielding the world she loved so dearly from despair, darkness, and the ultimate end of the future.

Somewhere, in that other world to which she had once belonged, she could feel them all fading away. Voices that she knew and loved drifted endlessly in and out of her shackled mind.

"How the hell am I supposed to be happy?' demanded Junpei angrily. "That's just life. That's just the way it is. The whole damn world's like that!"

_Hope, _thought Minako disjointedly. _Hope…_

"The crime rates are going up. The suicide rates are going up," insisted Akihiko, sounded dejected and disgusted at the same time. "There's nothing I can do about that. There's no way for just one person to change the world, no matter what dumb shit we thought when we were in school. How am I supposed to accept that?"

_Hope, _felt Minako desperately. _Please, hope…_

"I'm sick of the memories," whispered Yukari, with tears in her voice. "I just want to get away from this place! I just want to run away…but, the truth is that I'm running out of places to go."

_Hope, _insisted Minako. She could feel the bonds surrounding and supporting the seal beginning to buckle and falter under the weight of her disjointed desperation. _Hope…_

Mitsuru's voice was quieter than the others, as though her thoughts were muffled somewhere in the back of her conscious mind. "There is greed everywhere," she whispered. "Greed lurks in everyone's eyes; behind every piece of meaningless flattery and in every foolishly lavish gift. The world is made of greed and lies."

_Hope, _pounded the words in Minako's heart. _Oh, hope…_

"What ever happened to 'atoning for the past?'" demanded Ken, shouting and livid. "This isn't what I got my life back for!"

"No one," sighed Fuuka, "is coming for Christmas. No one ever comes for Christmas anymore."

_Hope, _wished Minako one final time, her soul trembling, full of the feelings she'd resisted for so long. Anger, disappointment, misery and doubt crept through every iota of what remained. Something deep inside her sighed.

"You're going to be leaving me soon," murmured the familiar voice of Ryoji Mochizuki, the Appriser, the Avatar, and the one creature who remained a part of Minako as she languished in the throes of other peoples' torment. He was a consciousness, somehow; not a living being but a series of connected emotions and thoughts that lived or existed somewhere on the same plane as that which Minako currently occupied. "I can feel it. You're almost gone already."

Minako wasn't sure what that meant. Was she really dying, this time? Would her soul be erased forever, now that they had all forgotten how to hope?

"Oh, no…nothing like that," insisted Ryoji. "It's just that…I don't think I'll be able to see you anymore. Once you go, I don't think you're going to come back. It makes me sad, but…I'm happy, too. I'm happy for you. It's nice to be needed, isn't it? They'll all need you again very soon."

Minako thought that she was needed, here. She was here to protect the world from an inevitable end. How could she go anywhere else?

"When you leave this place, I wonder if you'll remember me?" Ryoji sighed. "I don't know. It's not like this has ever happened before. I'll…I'll miss you. Is that selfish? Well, I guess it is. Do you mind?"

_What's going on? What are you talking about? _Minako was confused. She clawed frantically at that consciousness, trying to reach Ryoji as he faded gently and gradually away.

"Don't be upset," Ryoji reassured her. "Maybe this time, it will turn out the way you always wanted. We have to hope, don't we? And…I'll always love you, Minako. Remember that, even if I can't be with you anymore."

A cacophony of angry, desolate voices continued to sound in the back of Minako's mind. Wracked with the sadness of the human race, she felt herself tossed over and over by the waves of desolation, and clung to one experience, one feeling, and one emotion like a life preserver in a churning sea of doubt.

_Hope, _she thought as firmly as she could. The formless entity that was Ryoji gave her a sad little smile.

Somewhere, at the very ends of the earth, tears dripped from the eyes of the statue of a girl.


End file.
